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Re: Laptop?

It all depends on what you're willing to spend. I know you said you're on a limited budget, so stay away from anything Apple. Dell seems to be the way to go for a good laptop now. I found one that has all of what you want for $600 from Dell. If that doesn't suit you, I would think that the 200 GB of storage needs to be your first cut. From Dell, you save $100 if you downgrade the storage to 120GB, and RAM to 2 GB. 499 for a good laptop isn't a bad deal.

Re: Laptop?

I just bought a new Toshiba in June. It has pretty decent speakers, a 15.4" screen, 400 gig memory, 4 gb ram. I don't really game but I have a feeling it could handle that fine. I haven't had any trouble (knock on wood). I think the screen looks very good and I also haven't had much trouble adapting to Vista so I've been very happy with my buy. It was $1250 at Best Buy but I have a feeling the prices would be lower now with the economy downturn and the fact it's now several months older.

If you buy from Best Buy I'd also recommend getting the all inclusive service plan...best $300-400 you can spend. I know BB is a bit more expensive than some smaller places or online, but the service plan is a clincher for me. I'm a busy person with school so when my computer has trouble I just run it over to the nearest Best Buy, tell them what's wrong and either get it fixed or get it sent out to get fixed and get it back in a couple weeks. My first computer I bought I probably sent in about 10x to get fixed on the plan. I had 2 mother boards replaced (one faulty and one from a drop), I got a battery replaced right at the end of the warranty, I got a new wireless card, I got a new power cable twice, etc. A lot of stupid things failed on it but it was mostly because I was hard on it, ran it 24/7, and had several drops (oops). Anyways, it was a great investment for me.

Re: Laptop?

Originally Posted by GoReds33

It all depends on what you're willing to spend. I know you said you're on a limited budget, so stay away from anything Apple. Dell seems to be the way to go for a good laptop now. I found one that has all of what you want for $600 from Dell. If that doesn't suit you, I would think that the 200 GB of storage needs to be your first cut. From Dell, you save $100 if you downgrade the storage to 120GB, and RAM to 2 GB. 499 for a good laptop isn't a bad deal.

I ended up choosing the 1535. Spent a little more than what I had originally planned, but it will be okay. I have the money to buy it in savings, although I don't want to touch that. I'm going to have payments set up to help build credit.

Re: Laptop?

Like Justin, I just bought one of the new Macbook Pros and I couldn't be happier with the purchase thus far. It's simply an amazing machine.

FWIW, my last computer purchase was in 2003 -- I bought a Dell Inspiron 5100. It was a nice laptop for the time, but I started having problems about a year and half into owning it. The keyboard they used was really cheap and I had several keys break off after common usage. The AC adapter was also crap -- I went through three of those due to normal wear around the ends of the wires. Finally, in 2006 - after a scant 2 1/2 years of ownership - the video card died on the thing and I was relegated to plugging into an external monitor until the rest of the motherboard died 6 months later.

I'll never buy another Dell. I took *immaculate* care of the laptop and it still pooped out on me in under 3 years.

Re: Laptop?

Re: Laptop?

Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor

Like Justin, I just bought one of the new Macbook Pros and I couldn't be happier with the purchase thus far. It's simply an amazing machine.

FWIW, my last computer purchase was in 2003 -- I bought a Dell Inspiron 5100. It was a nice laptop for the time, but I started having problems about a year and half into owning it. The keyboard they used was really cheap and I had several keys break off after common usage. The AC adapter was also crap -- I went through three of those due to normal wear around the ends of the wires. Finally, in 2006 - after a scant 2 1/2 years of ownership - the video card died on the thing and I was relegated to plugging into an external monitor until the rest of the motherboard died 6 months later.

I'll never buy another Dell. I took *immaculate* care of the laptop and it still pooped out on me in under 3 years.

I have that same computer. Haven't had any problems except with the AC adapter. We are pretty easy on the machine, though.

What sucked about Dell was this:
I wanted to upgrade the memory so I used the Dell website to analyze my computer and tell me EXACTLY what I needed. What the site recommended was 333MHz, instead of 266MHz. So I bought the wrong memory ON DELL'S RECOMMENDATION.
I was on vacation when they arrived. When I came back I tried to install them and they wouldn't work. First I thought it was a bios problem. Had a friend who works in IT at work try looking at it and he couldn't figure it out (bios was the correct version). By this time it's about a month after purchase.

I finally got a technician at Dell to figure it out- he told me I had the wrong speed memory (and even said there must be some bug with their website to recommend the wrong stuff). So, I called Dell Cust. Service to ask for an exchange and they refused, saying it was beyond the standard 21 day return period. So, I'm going to buy the right memory from someone other than Dell, then I'll sell these on ebay.

And I will never buy another Dell. Ever. And now I have informed hundreds of people, which proves the old customer service adage, "Satisfy a customer and they won't tell anyone. Piss one off and they'll tell everyone they can."

Re: Laptop?

My job is to help my clients buy desktops, servers, laptops and more. Unfortunately it looks as though you already bought at Dell, but let me tell you that we never recommend dells to any of our clients. They have horrific customer support; they use very cheap products (especially their motherboards). If anyone else is looking to buy a laptop than look into HP. Again- we always have issues with Dell here, but very few times have I had to return HP’s gear (and if I did it was no where like returning a Dell).

Re: Laptop?

We have bought about 300 computers in the last couple of years at my workplace. What we have seen from Dell is that the quality of their products has varied. We have had a few shipments of machines that have been rock solid, but then other batches where we see a 15% DOA rate.

Like I said, my laptop has been relatively problem free and I'm otherwise satisfied with it. And I have not seen any problems with the Latitudes we have ordered from Dell at all. Virtually all the problems we have had are with desktops.

Re: Laptop?

I can say that my experience with Dell Customer Service was a little different than yours was Sundeck, but mine was also through a business account so that could be the difference. That said, we haven't had any problems with our laptops here that was Dell's fault (we did have one shipped to the wrong address by UPS and had to wait another week to get a replacement).

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